Water

How should the City of Los Angeles plan to meet future water needs of a growing population and business?

I would recommend the large scale implementation of a SMURRF-like system (Santa Monica Urban Run-off Recycling Facility) at various points along the river that could remove water for non-potable uses.

I would expand the revised permitting process for simple residential greywater systems. LA should continue to streamline this permitting process as greywater systems enable homeowners to re-use up to 80 percent of this water to irrigate plants and trees within their property, potentially saving up to 50,000 gallons a year.

The City should provide incentives for the use in homes and businesses of an inexpensive leak detection system as huge amounts of water are wasted from old infrastructure.

The City should consider the pros and cons of desalination. As you know, desalination is the process of turning seawater into fresh drinking water. We must find new ways to provide safe water to Los Angeles and the region. Some cities in California are building desalination plants. While I recognize that there are cost concerns related to desalination, and environmental concerns surrounding desalination plants, including energy consumption and potential harm to certain fish and marine life, finding new sources of water is now an absolute necessity and technology in this area is advancing.

As Mayor, I will end the raiding of special revenue funds, including special revenue funds aimed at providing critical infrastructure maintenance. My opponents have raided these funds to pay for salary increases that the City cannot afford and the City’s infrastructure and environment have suffered as a result of this conduct.

As these presentations demonstrate, the City has made progress in a number of areas related to LA’s water supply, including conservation, but the UCLA report entitled Vision 2021 demonstrates that the progress that has been made is overall insufficient. New leadership is needed to end the bureaucratic hassle of implementing environmentally friendly systems and programs.